OCR Text |
Show INDIAN OCEAN IS UNKNOWN. Suez Canal and Steamers Leave Un-traversed Un-traversed Wastes In This Sea. Perchance of no area of our great ocv.ms do we at tho piesent day know , less than or the Indian ocean within the trollies, says the Oeographlcal loin mil. Fifty yenrs ago, In tho days befoie the gieat China and Indian clip-1 pers It wns. save for a small urea to i he north of Madnguscar. nllvo with "bile wings anxious to tuke advantage r eveij slant of wind or tho smallest cirtent Its minutest characteristics were then the subject of anxious study wheieas now Its greater putt Is to most nuvlga',is an unknown sea With the opening of tho Suez canal llii'ie was u piofoimd alteration of tiade, and the most Important routes now start not fiom Mauritius or tho cupe but fiom tho Ked sea. Hundreds of steamers, laughing at winds and currents, pa i annually from Aden to lb mbay and olonibu on tho ono hand und to Hast African pints, Madagascar, ' VuiirllliiM unit Sejchelles on tho other Khmii Colom i. again, there aro regn lai lines to C.ilnitlu, Singapore, West Atistialla. Mauillliis und South Afilca, Hut evcept on the lines fiom the lted sea to Colombo and ftom the hit ter to the f i- east and to ustialla then Is a r atlve absence of competition, compe-tition, a want of tint necessity for Herniate knoAledge of tho winds, cur-louts cur-louts und topography which Is only rallod fin Hi by a keen deshe for saving sav-ing time or mileage The unites acioss her l iface nie also wide apart and her Islam's aiecommei dally unlni-iui unlni-iui taut (Jieat ureas ate seldom or never ciossed by ships. In our six ni"tiths' eiu'ie on his majesty's ship Rrfilaik we never saw except In pott a single steamer, and only one solitary bilg. a smalt trader from Mauritius to the Chagos. |